


Wasteland

by clavonrie



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Animal Death, Blood, Character Death, Character Study, Crimson Flower Chapter 14: The Master Tactician, if she chooses not to spare him, yeah it's hozier themed don't @ me about it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:28:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24400582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clavonrie/pseuds/clavonrie
Summary: “Goodbye, Claude.”-The stench of the sea and the absence of green,Are the death of all things that are seen and unseen.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 16





	Wasteland

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. 

The wyvern he’d had since he was a child lay dead at his back, her wing burnt to cinders by the volley of fire he hadn’t anticipated, sending them spiraling to the ground. His leg, too, the one hooked into her stirrup, it must’ve gotten caught in the magic or, crushed beneath her when she’d fallen to the ground from stories and stories high into the air or, when he’d had to fend off an Imperial soldier, seeking a moment of glory within his moment of devastating weakness, their blade tearing through his knee or— or maybe all of it. Was it agonizing, he wondered, blood gushing from his wounds, limbs fractured, if not completely twisted and broken? Was it painful, the arrow embedded in his stomach, broken off from the impact of his crash and embedded deep into his abdomen? All he could feel was numbness, and dread, watching from his artificial island, slabs of stone floating atop the water as comrade after comrade fell, soldier following soldier to the hard ground.

It was almost hateful, the sun that sang warmth, whose rays washed upon them. A day for victory, but not  _ their _ victory. Not his. 

His entire life, he’d fought to live. Shame, pity, humiliation, a scar, or trauma, none of it mattered as long as he could survive. As long as he could weather the hate spit upon him for the color of his eyes at five, the poison in his food delivered by spiteful servants when he was seven, the ice cold hand that gripped his heart when he’d discovered the one trying so often to smother him beneath his pillow had been his own  _ brother _ on the day before his eleventh birthday it.. didn’t matter. It hadn’t mattered. Because he’d lived to see the next day, lived to craft a future where prejudice and hate didn’t scar his homeland, and where class did not have so strong and horrible a grip on his mother’s place of birth. 

Would he have come here, to Fódlan, had he known of his fate? 

“Maybe, if we’d been closer as students…” Edelgard explained, the click of her boots sharp on the stone, sound cracking through his skull and bringing to his attention the gentle swaying of the floor beneath them. Once, he might’ve found it comforting. Now, all it did was make him nauseous with the thought that he had made a terrible mistake. “Maybe, I could trust you not to return here and exact some sort of new plan. You’ve just… never known when to give up, Claude.”

It was with great effort that he lifted his head, then, to look at her, pristine in the red of her empire, and in the blood of his friends. 

“Yes…” he mumbled, more to himself than to her, head dropping back to stare hard at the ground, leather glove squeaking where it wrinkled in the tightness of his fist. Yes, he thought, he would have come to Fódlan, because if there had been even a… even the smallest, tiniest sliver of hope, he’d have reached desperately to try and snatch it out of the air and use its needle sharp point to weave together something magnificent, something akin to victory in a war where lives were lost as quickly and as easily as the fluff on a dandelion, and as thoughtlessly. Even he couldn’t name even a tenth of the people he’d had to put down in his own fighting for… what? Victory? It seemed so shallow a dream, now, laying there, his blood pooling beneath him, pooling in his throat, or maybe that was just the guilt, choking him.

Why hadn’t they run? Hilda and, and Lysithea, Ignatz, Raphael, and Leonie and Marianne, hell, even Lorenz had stayed till the end. He’d told them, explicitly, that when the going got rough, then it was time to get going. He’d gotten sloppy, watching the fight from his lofted position in the sky. He’d seen them all, each one of them, crumble to the ground as the Empire overwhelmed and crushed them, a towering volcano burning out what he now understood to be nothing more than a meager wooden fence, yielding ash in the face of the inevitability of heat and magma. And, in his distracted, pained stupor, he’d been struck, and had fallen.

“I understand that if you were a man of your word,” Edelgard went on, “that having Almyra as a political ally would be ultimately beneficial. Of course it would. But you could never promise me your word before, and why would I start to believe you now? All you’ve proven yourself to be is a king of nothing but schemes.”

How much blood could he lose before he died? How much was too much? Would he breathe his last breath, or would Edelgard forcibly wrench the air from his body? Claude was almost surprised that, even in the face of his own mortality, he still had so many questions, and for once, he would stop before he dug for the answers. 

His mind flashed violently to Nader, whiplashing him, wracking his body with shakes worse than the growing cold ever could. Nader was one of the only people in the world who he trusted with his life, whose presence calmed him enough that he could sleep without the cold security of a dagger tucked beneath his pillow. Nader, though not blood related, was his family, as much as his father and mother were. Claude, with vivid clarity, could remember when he’d just turned nine, old enough to hold a wooden practice sword and eager to train. His tutor had turned out to be a vile man, hateful, angry that the heir to the golden throne was born dirty, and he would squirm whenever they made eye contact. Claude would only realize, later, that the man had shaken with fury, simply because the eyes he’d met were green, a trait completely nonexistent in pure Almyran blood heritage. He’d handed Claude a real sword, heavy and cold in his weak and inexperienced hands, too heavy to lift, too heavy to defend himself with when his instructor came at him with his own true, sharpened blade with every intention to kill the young boy where he stood. 

It was Nader who saved him, who heard his cries and yanked the man away, who cradled Claude after beating his instructor senseless and wiped his tears. 

If there was one thing he could beg for, it wouldn’t be his life. No, he’d done that, and Edelgard had made her decision. He would, instead, turn towards the ocean where Nader and his battalion had fled, and he would  _ scream _ . Please, he wanted to cry, please don’t come back. Please, no more war, no more vengeance, and loss. Edelgard had already made it explicitly clear that having the country of gold and sand to her west at her absolute debt was of no consequence to her, and Claude couldn’t afford for his people to go even further into the negative, not only losing their king, but their hero as well. 

He hoped Nader would not tell his parents of his downfall in a way that would incite his father and his generals. He could only hope his mother didn’t mount her long-retired steed and that she wouldn’t ride for war. The fighting had already been so long, drawn out and painful. The ground was cold in comparison to his blood when his forehead rested against it, suddenly so tired, cold.

“I see,” he wheezed out, coughing weakly, spattering more red on the grey tile. “Right until the end, I’ve—” The blood in his throat curled, and bubbled with his ragged breathing, and he choked on it. And it was then that it began to hurt. He couldn’t even manage a bitter laugh. “I’ve read this… whole thing, terribly wrong.” All those soldiers, those people with lives, families, with dreams. They’d all followed him into hell, believing, even after all his failures, that he could show them victory.

He wished he could tell them that that wasn’t what he’d ever intended. Drawing Edelgard to Derdriu? Submitting his life to her and allowing all of the Leicester Alliance to see his downfall? That had always been the plan, to shatter whatever hope was left so no one else made the mistakes he’d made, think that they could…  _ win _ , and just get themselves killed in the process. But it… it wasn’t supposed to… be this way, be this massacre that colored the water an Adrestian red. No he’d— he’d just, he’d thought they would run, abandon him, seek life over death the way he had his whole life. Maybe this was the consequence of the isolation and loneliness of his youth. He hadn’t realized just how valuable his friendships were, how much they’d all be willing to put on the line for each other. Even if it meant deviating from what he’d painstakingly planned.

Edelgard’s shadow fell over him, and at last she stood before him, Aymr’s hateful, angry jaws twitching in her firm grip. 

There was nothing more to think. No more time to plan, not enough left of him to regret. His eyelids felt so heavy. His chest felt full and tight, lungs flooded with blood, and eyes wet with tears he would not shed. 

All his dreams had fallen to ash.

“It’s… all up to you now, Edelgard.” Whether or not his voice was coming through, he couldn’t know. He could only hope she could hear him through the foam of blood and gasping, drowning breaths. “I hope you really… do make the world… better.”

The air smelled of fire, burned flesh, blood, and of the sharp salt that still carried along the ocean’s breeze. His lids slid shut for the last time over his green eyes. 

Edelgard’s words cut through the sound of Aymr splitting his skull open. 

“Goodbye, Claude.”

**Author's Note:**

> That's it.


End file.
